Search engines provide a powerful tool for locating content in documents and other information sources from a large database of information, such as information accessed on the Internet or World Wide Web (WWW), and/or the documents stored on the computers of an Intranet. Information may be retrieved in response to a search query, consisting of one or more words, terms, keywords and/or phrases that are submitted by a user. A goal of the search engine is to provide links to high quality, relevant results (e.g., web pages) to the user based on the search query. Typically, the search engine accomplishes this by matching the terms in the search query to documents and other information sources retrieved from the database.
As search query methods have evolved, more search results are cluttered with information that may affect the quality of the search result. The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the returned search result. Of the millions of web pages that are considered in a search query, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Furthermore, search results have become more manipulated to include undesirable information that accommodate interest associated with advertising, marketing, or other interests peripheral to the actual query. Consequently, web pages are becoming more tainted with sites that employ techniques such as spamdexing, link farming, keyword stuffing and article spinning, which degrade both the relevance of search results and the quality of the user-experience. Existing search engine methods lack flexibility for generating search results that overcome such encumbrances and that compromise search engine performance.